MY KIDS
by a fan
Summary: Lydecker considers his Kids and what they mean to him. Updated to include the events of Hit a Sister Back .


Disclaimer: I don't own 'em....  
  
Title: My Kids  
  
Summary: After the events of Hit a Sister Back Lydecker considers his Kids and what they mean to him.  
  
Spoilers: All episodes to date and some hints at upcoming episodes although who knows what will really happen.   
  
  
A/N: I wrote this last week but had to incorporate the events of the most recent episode. So here it is updated and expanded.  
  
MY KIDS  
  
  
I hate recovering alcoholics and their reliance on a higher power. There is no such thing. There is no love or faith or repentance or redemption. When I dumped love and faith from my life my drinking stopped. It's phony sentimentality that makes you weak and drives you to useless drugs like alcohol in an attempt to deaden your pain. But when you purge sentimentality from within yourself there is no pain and you can function. You can focus on your objective. I have.  
  
I threw away everything human in myself. Human life has no value to me any more. It's so easy for me to use and discard a person. I used Adrianna in the past but when she became useless I killed her like I killed hundreds even thousands of others. Like anything that doesn't help me achieve my objective she was nothing to me. I destroyed her and I destroyed twenty-six X2's and several X5's that didn't meet the objective. The only thing I care about is my objective and I will achieve it at any cost.  
  
My objective is to build the perfect soldier, strong, fast, intelligent and devoid of human emotions. A soldier able to focus, able to kill readily, efficiently and happily. A soldier like me but better. The only thing that matters is my soldiers, my kids, and making them achieve my objective. They can't do that alone. They need me to lead them and guide them.  
  
Every parent wants their kids to be more successful than him and I want that for my kids too. I designed and built them to be the perfect soldier to be better than me, to be stronger and faster and smarter than me. To kill easily and they do. The ones working for me have completed hundreds of missions with no qualms. Why should they have any qualms? This is their life. They are soldiers with an objective. There is nothing else out there.  
  
And the ones that got away have proven to be even stronger. Every time they escape me I can't help but think that I have succeeded. I built and trained and taught them to escape and evade. I'm only disappointed when I capture one. That they failed and I failed too.  
  
Yet my kids have exhibited characteristics that I did not design into them. They created their own little religion and thought they kept it a secret, but I knew about it. I knew everything about them, about what they did. But faith, where did that come from? I didn't sequence it into their genetic codes. I know, because I designed every inch of them down to the length of Max's eyelashes and Zack's height. I made them beautiful because it was a tool they could use. I made them appear latin and caucasian and oriental because it was a tool they could use. But I did not build faith into them.  
  
My worst disappointment is Zack. At Manticore he was the best. My strongest soldier. Emotion did not affect him. Yet he was the one that orchestrated the escape. Freedom. We didn't teach them about freedom. The concept was foreign to him. He didn't even know that he was prison so why did he lead the escape? Where did he get the idea that it would be better out there than with me?  
  
Then ten years later Zack turned himself in. Sentimental fool. I didn't even capture him. He gave himself up! Didn't he know that I would do anything to him to get to the others? Just because he is one of my kids doesn't mean he's not my enemy! He gave himself up for Max and for what? For love. I know he loves her. The fool.   
  
I couldn't believe that Tinga was married and had a son. She ignored all her training and put herself into the most vulnerable position. She was willing to give up her freedom to save her son. I watched the love in her eyes as she said goodbye to her child and her husband. Why did she think she could have love in her life? She too is a fool.  
  
I know all my kids love each other. They are all fools.  
  
Faith, freedom, love. I didn't build these things into my kids. And in their training I tried to beat the possibility of the concepts out of them, yet they still found them. It's enough to make me think that the higher power is back in my life. That damned Higher Power that won't let me go and won't let my kids go either. Damn God, He had to put his hands into my work.  
  
In the end I am a total failure. Manticore is imploding before my eyes. We are destroying each other. And my kids are still out there. They are my worst failure. They did not become what I designed them to be.   
  
Yet some days when I think about my kids I can't help but smile in an ironic way. I tried to make them in my image but they are more than I am. My kids are faster stronger and more intelligent than I. They can fight and run and kill and feel pain and yet they love. How can they love? I can't. I won't. I will never go back there. I have chosen my life. Yet, I Donald Lydecker, soldier, man of no heart, denier of God set out to create the perfect soldier and I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. My kids found love and compassion in their lives. They reclaimed the humanity that I discarded. In the end my kids have redeemed me.  
  
In the end my failure was my greatest success.  
  
A/N: Did Lydecker succeed or fail? Could a higher power really affect his experiment? Can his kids really redeem him? Please R&R.  



End file.
